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24

myON

...

cont’d.

high-tech mobile Wi-Fi units. They transformed 24 school

buses into stationary “hotspots” that are parked overnight in

communities throughout the county where Internet access is

not available.

These are just a few examples of schools and communities

coming together to get kids reading.

ELL is another focus for myON. Just 30 miles north of the

wealthy Malibu, California, seaside community, 85 percent

of the students in Oxnard live in poverty. English is a second

language for more than half of those students.

The Oxnard School District sponsored “App-y Hour”

workshops in which teachers and principals shared the

applications they had successfully used on new tablets the

district had provided for every student and teacher. Out of

those discussions, Superintendent Cesar Morales, who

was named a 2017 Education Week Leader to Learn From,

pushed to expand myON in an effort to support ELL in

his district.

Access also is a major problem for some students in the

Goreville School District in deep southern Illinois, prompting

Superintendent Dr. Steve Webb to work with myON to find

a solution.

“We have used MyOn for two years now and they have

opened the door to so many opportunities for our kids.

We are a rural area without a public library and 40 percent

poverty so we teamed up with MyON when we rolled out our

1:1 Technology Initiative to ensure access to thousands of

books that our kids could read on state-of-the-art devices

no matter their income level,” Webb said. “We also provided

open free internet access throughout the school grounds

and parking areas so that they could download books to

their devices 24-by-7 in case they did not have access at

home. Last year alone, our kids read over 11 million words

on myOn! That’s in addition to the school library checkout

system and any private selections they might choose. But,

the best part of the program is that our kids are having fun

learning and that was our goal all along.”

Jordan, who has a Master’s Degree in Psychology with

an emphasis on child development, has seen technology

transform education in her more than a quarter century

of teaching. Going from blackboards to smart boards and

encyclopedias to Wikipedia has happened at a dizzying pace.

She said myON is dedicated to making sure no one gets left

behind when it comes to literacy.

“When I was a teacher, I found that myON was a great way

to connect families with our school,” Jordan said. “By working

on creative solutions to provide literacy access to all kids,

we are connecting schoolchildren to the world through a

personalized program that matches students’ interests and

reading levels to a recommended list curated from the more

than 5,800 enhanced digital books and reading supports that

myON offers.”